


the venn diagram of hamlet and azula kinnies is a fucking circle

by Elmers_glue



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: literally an english paper i wrote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 15:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30107775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elmers_glue/pseuds/Elmers_glue
Summary: i wrote this paper for english comparing hamlet and zuko and azula idk have fun
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	the venn diagram of hamlet and azula kinnies is a fucking circle

**Author's Note:**

> fuck it cause discourse in ur comments idk this is the rough draft bc im tired

  
  


The Crossroads of Destiny: Comparing the Motives and Choices of Hamlet from William Shakespeare’s  _ Hamlet _ , and Zuko and Azula from  Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko’s  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender _ .

In Shakespeare’s  _ Hamlet _ and  Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko’s  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender _ , there are many different decisions that the characters of Hamlet, Zuko, and Azula are forced to make. These decisions often end up being destructive and lead to disastrous consequences as shown by Hamlet’s death, and Azula’s eventual downfall. However, Zuko, with the unconditional love and support of his Uncle Iroh, is able to change for the better and thrive. Each character has a motive that pushes them to make the choices they make, and each character refuses to see past the consequences of their actions until they are stopped. Azula and Hamlet are forcibly stopped in their quest for either unmitigated power or thirst for revenge because they refused to listen to people who were willing to help them change, while Zuko is given the opportunity to choose good, and takes it. 

_ Hamlet  _ by William Shakespeare tells the story of a Danish prince who goes insane after his father’s murder by his uncle. After hearing of his father, Hamlet I’s, death, Hamlet returns to his castle in Elsinore to go to both his father’s funeral, and his mother wedding to his uncle Claudius which takes place a month after his father’s death. There is also news of a war with Norway, which is constantly mentioned in the play. Hamlet thengreets Horatio, who tells him that he and several of the other guards have seen the ghost of Hamlet I at the main gate the night before, but that the ghost refuses to speak to any of them. Hamlet agrees to wait at the gate to speak to the ghost, and when the ghosts appears and beckons Hamlet to follow him. When Hamlet and the ghost are alone, Hamlet I tells Hamlet that Claudius had killed him, and begs for Hamlet to avenge him. Hamlet agrees, and when Horatio and the other guards catch up to him, he makes them promise not to tell anyone about the ghost and that he will be acting crazy so he can kill Claudius. His plan starts off well, but in the process he scares Ophelia, who he had been in a relationship with until she calls it off because the combined pressure of Hamlet’s craziness and the fact that her father, Polonius, and her brother, Laertes, don’t trust him. Hamlet shows no remorse and keeps acting crazy, but his false insanity developes into actual insanity as the play continues. Hamlet builds a scheme to capture Claudius’s guilt by creating the Mousetrap play, which tells the story of how Claudius killed Hamlet I. Before the performance, Hamlet finds out his friends Rosencranz and Guildenstern have also arrived, but Hamlet is immediately suspicious of them because he thinks his mother and Claudius have brought them to Elsinore to spy on him. He continues to act crazy, and puts on the play, which he considers to be a success. After the play, during a conversation with Gertrude, he hears a noise behind a tapestry and stabs it, but it turns out to be Polonius. Hamlet is once again visited by the ghost. As a punishment for killing Polonius, Hamlet is sent to England alongside Rosencranz and Guildenstern to be put to death. Ophelia then kills herself, and Claudius begins making a plan with Laertes to kill Hamlet. They decide on a duel, which Horatio warns Hamlet about and tells him not to accept, but Hamlet once again ignores him and duels Laertes. Unbeknownst to Hamlet, but his goblet is poisoned, and the swords he and Laertes are using are poisoned as well. Halfway through the duel, Gertrude drinks from Hamlet’s wine, and Hamlet hits Laertes with the poisoned sword. Laertes then hits Hamlet, and tells him what he has done. Gertrude collapses and dies, as well as Laertes. Hamlet, furious, forces Claudius to drink the poisoned wine and kills him. After this, Hamlet collapses from the poison as well, and as he is dying learns that Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, has come to take over. Hamlet gives Fortinbras his vote as the new king, and dies in Horatio’s arms. Horatio is left to explain this to Fortinbras and the Norwegian army, who walks into a room of corpses. Fortinbras accepts leadership of Denmark and orders Hamlet to be buried.

_ Avatar: the Last Airbender _ follows the story of Avatar Aang and his friends Sokka and Katara in their quest to stop the Fire Nation from conquering the world.  _ Avatar _ is set in a fictional world in which there are four separate nations: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, and certain people in each nation can bend each element, and have control over it. The Avatar is the one person in the world who has the power to bend all the elements, and after each Avatar dies, they are reincarnated and their memories go to the next Avatar. The purpose of the Avatar is to prevent one nation from overpowering the others, but a century before the show takes place, Aang fled his duties as Avatar and hid, allowing the Fire Nation to take over. The show starts off with Sokka, who is 16, and his younger sister, Katara who is 14, finding Aang in an iceberg. The first season follows Aang, Sokka, and Katara and their journey to find a waterbending teacher for Aang and Katara so he can become strong enough to defeat Ozai before Sozin’s comet, which will allow Ozai to take over the whole world. Meanwhile, Prince Zuko, the exiled son of Firelord Ozai and his Uncle Iroh pursue them to regain Zuko’s honor so he can return to the Fire Nation. Aang is captured by another general of the Fire Nation, and Zuko saves him so he can say he was the one who captured Aang and make his father proud. The season ends with the rival general killing the moon spirit of the Northern Water Tribe, where Aang had been learning waterbending, and with the help of Yue, the princess of the Northern Water Tribe who sacrifices herself, Aang manages to drive the Fire Nation away. In the second season, Aang finds Toph Beifong, who despite being 12 and blind is one of the strongest earthbenders alive, and she teaches him how to earthbend. While they travel to the Earth Nation city of Ba Sing Se, Zuko and Iroh find themselves to be fugitives of the Fire Nation, and go undercover in Ba Sing Se as well. Zuko finds himself questioning his loyalty to the Fire Nation, and Iroh encourages him to find inner peace and to stop hunting down Aang because he knows its not what Zuko wants. While both groups make their way into the city, Azula, a firebending prodigy and Zuko’s younger sister, and her friends Ty Lee and Mai plan to overthrow Ba Sing Se and make it part of the Fire Nation. At the end of the season, Azula kills Aang, but Katara manages to heal him through her healing powers from her waterbending. The third season starts with Zuko and Azula arriving in the Fire Nation, where they are honored by the Fire Nation and Zuko regains his honor, but Iroh is locked in jail for treason. Meanwhile, Aang, Katara, Toph, and Sokka make a plan to kill Ozai when the upcoming solar eclipse hits, and all the firebenders will not be able to bend. While they storm the Fire Nation capital, Zuko betrays the Fire Nation to help Aang because he realizes that what the Fire Nation is doing is awful and that he can’t stay any longer. He goes to Aang with the intention of teaching him how to firebend, and he ends up befriending the group. As the date of Sozin’s Comet comes closer and closer, Aang prepares to fight Ozai, while Azula prepares for her coronation to be the firelord, but she is left by Ty Lee and Mai, who decide they don’t want to keep being used by her, and Azula has a mental breakdown and she becomes instable and insane. On the day of Sozin’s Comet, Aang fights Ozai, and using his Avatar powers, strips him of his firebending, and Zuko duels an insane Azula and wins. After she is captured and sent to a mental asylum, Zuko is crowned Firelord, thus ending the war and the series.

In both  _ Hamlet _ and  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender _ , all three characters have very similar starting points in their respective stories. They are all royalty at a time of war, have very complex relationships with their parents, and they all are forced to make horrible decisions because of it. In  _ Hamler _ , Denmark is at war with Norway, and the war is constantly mentioned throughout the play. Even in his death scene, Hamlet casts his vote to make Fortinbras king of Denmark as well as Norway because just as everyone is dying, the Norwegian army finally reaches the castle. 

“O, I die, Horatio! 

The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit. 

I cannot live to hear the news from England.

But I do prophesy th’ election lights 

On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice. 

So tell him, with th’ occurrents, more and less, 

Which have solicited—the rest is silence.” (Shakespeare 5.2 389-395)

This is Hamlet’s dying words, and instead of resolving his own personal matters, or properly saying goodbye to Horatio, he is forced to make a decision who’s outcome he’ll never see. In  _ Avatar _ , the Fire Nation is the one that is conquering the world. They haven’t lost a war in one hundred years, and it shows in their general attitude. They have been taught the fire nation is the best out of the other nations, and as a result, have been taught that they are the best. However, even though the fire nation is the one nation conquering, Azula still have been going to war meetings for years and is very knowledgeable in war and strategy., and Zuko is on an expedition to kill the only thing that can stop the fire nation. All three of them haven’t known peace in quite some time, as in  _ Hamlet _ there has been multiple wars going on, along with the threat of Norway, and the fire nation has been conquering since long before Zuko and Azula were born. 

Azula, Zuko, and Hamlet all have incredibly complex relationships with their parents. They each have been betrayed by their mothers and they all idolize their father to a dangerous degree. Azula and Zuko were left by their mother, Ursa, at a young age, and Hamlet’s mother Gertrude married Hamlet’s father’s brother and murderer a month after his father was killed. Zuko and Azula, as children of the firelord, have grown up with a perfectionist and violent father, and the ghost of Hamlet I haunts Hamlet and tells him to kill Claudius in revenge. Without thinking about the consequences of their actions, they follow the directions they have been given blindly, and often are forced into violent or dangerous situations. For example, Zuko is forced to fight off Aang, who as the Avatar is in the process of mastering all the elements, and Azula is forced to lead an army against a well guarded city while being only fourteen. Hamlet is also forced to kill Claudius, who has been planning on killing him as well as Hamlet I. They all are well acquainted with death and fear, and are past caring about their only wellbeing and only care about being perfect and proving their worth to their parents.

Azula and Hamlet have many different things in common other than just being royalty, as their homelife and their personalities are very similar. As mentioned before, their relationships with their mothers are horrible. Azula was constantly told by her mother Ursa that she was a monster and that she was horrible, and this was before she left, when Azula was nine. For years, she had been told by her mother that she was evil and that Zuko was her favorite and by the time Ursa left her family, Azula had already grown into it, and had already hurt people and simply didn’t care. Even years after, Ursa’s words continued to hurt her, but by this point Azula can’t even deny it. This is proved by the fire scene in episode five: The Beach, in Season Three. In this scene, Ty Lee, Mai, Zuko, and Azula are sitting around a fire and talking about their feelings, something that really isn’t shown in the rest of the show, and Azula says this after a fight breaks out between Ty Lee, Mai, and Zuko about showing emotions and why they repress them:

“I could sit here and complain how our mom liked Zuko more than me, but I don't really care.  _ (Cut to shot of the burning embers left from the fire) _ My own mother... _ (cut to shot of the embers reflected in Azula's eyes) _ thought I was a monster.  _ (cut to Mai and Zuko. Then to Ty Lee, who looks on concerned. Cut back to a wide shot of the whole group, Azula sitting in the center of the shot) _ She was right, of course, but it still hurt.” (TIME STAMP)

Obviously, Ursa’s words did still affect Azula, as she’s still thinking about it, and by saying she doesn’t really care, she tries to hide any weakness even from the people she considers her friends, and her own brother. Even in a conversation about how each of their pasts and their family affects them, Azula feels the need to remind everyone that she isn’t affected and to pretend she doesn’t feel hurt and that she’s perfectly fine, even when they know she’s not. This quote also demonstrates how Azula just accepts the fact that she is a bad person, and that she doesn’t try, and will never try to become better, which separates her from Zuko, and makes her very similar to Hamlet in that regard. 

Hamlet, like Azula, also has been betrayed by his mother. While she didn’t leave like Ursa, Gertrude left her son emotionally when she married Claudius, without any consideration to respect her dead husband, or any consideration as to how Hamlet would feel about her marrying so soon. She also dismisses Hamlet’s feelings when he continues to grieve the death of his father, and tells him to just get over it, “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,/ And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark./ Do not forever with thy vailèd lids/ Seek for thy noble father in the dust./ Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,/ Passing through nature to eternity.” (2.2, 70-75) She tells him that since everybody dies at some point, he shouldn’t be sad about his father dying, and immediately after she and Claudius prohibit him from going back to university because she wants him to stay for her. Hamlet feels betrayed by this, as demonstrated in Act 1 Scene 3, “O most wicked speed, to post / With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!/It is not nor it cannot come to good, / But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” (1.3, 156-159) This quote shows how Hamlet hates the relationship between his mother and Claudius, but how he can’t say anything to either of them or publicly denounce their relationship because he knows that there is no solid proof other than his father’s ghost to say that Claudius killed Hamlet I. It also shows Hamlet’s disdain for the marriage in both the speed of the engagement, and how Claudius was his uncle, and while that’s not technically incest, it feels like it is to Hamlet, and he doesn’t like that. Hamlet and Gertrude’s relationship in  _ Hamlet _ is manipulative and toxic, and had Gertrude allowed Hamlet to grieve and take the time he needed to mourn the events of the play would probably not have happened like they did. If Hamlet had a proper time to grieve, and had been able to return to University, he would have been able to leave his home behind, rather than live in a place where he was constantly reminded of the sins of his family. 

As well as having incredibly toxic relationships with their mothers, Azula and Hamlet also both have signs of paranoia, and have delusions and hallucinations involving their mothers. They are also both in denial that their mental state is deteriorating, which makes them make dangerous and harmer choices, because they feel threatened and think everyone is out to hurt them. Azula firmly believes that there is nothing wrong with her, even after she fires multiple servants because she thinks that they’re not to be trusted, and panics over finding a cherry pit in a cherry, and claims that “None of them could be trusted. Sooner or later, they all would have betrayed me. Just like Mai and Ty Lee did.” (Episode 20: Sozin’s Comet Part Three, Season 3, TIMESTAMP) She says this during a conversation with her advisors, who tell her that they think it would be best if she moved her coronation to become the firelord because they recognize that her mental state is not in a good place. She banishes one of them, while pointing to the other, which shows how her memory and her ability to think clearly is failing her, and tells them both to leave her be. This scene leads into the peak of her delusions. While she prepares for her coronation, Azula’s hair gets caught in a knot, and instead of just brushing it out, she decides to cut it off. She grabs a pair of scissors and starts hacking at her hair, and the result is messy and uncentered bangs. She grins insanely at her reflection in the mirror until she notices Ursa standing behind her in the mirror. 

“ **Ursa** : ( _ off screen _ ) What a shame, you always had such beautiful hair.

**Azula** : What are  _ you _ doing here?

**Ursa** : I didn't want to miss my own daughter's coronation.

**Azula** : Don't pretend to act proud. I know what you really think of me. You think I'm a monster.

**Ursa** : I think you're confused. All your life you used fear to control people. Like your friends Mai and Ty Lee.

**Azula** : But what choice do I have?! Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way. Even you fear me.

**Ursa** : No. I  _ love _ you, Azula. I do.

_ (Cut to a close up of Azula's lip quivering. She lowers her head, tears dripping from her eyes. Cut to a close up of her hand clutching a brush on the table. She suddenly turns around and angrily throws the brush at the reflection of Ursa, shattering the mirror. Cut to an overhead shot of the room. Azula is alone. She falls to her knees and starts to sob.” (Sozin’s comet part 3, The Inferno, act 2) _

This scene is Azula’s lowest moment. It is finally her time to take control as the firelord and for her to get everything she had always wanted, but she’s not in the place to take control, and she’s reaching out for anything she can grab onto for support, and it falls onto her mother, who’s love she has always wanted but never had. This scene is the culmination of her fear and self hatred and perfectionism that leads her to finally tell her what she truly wishes she could have, but it forces her to see herself in a new light, and she refuses to accept it, as shown by her throwing her hairbrush at the mirror. This is the only time in the show where Azula’s true feelings are revealed and where it becomes clear that she’s been hurt and that she isn’t content being seen as the monster her real mother thought she was. This is the Azula’s defining moment in the show, as it explicitly tells the audience that she just wants to be loved the way Zuko was always loved by his mother and Uncle Iroh, but she isn’t willing to change to be better. Instead, she bottles it up and continues with the coronation. 

Hamlet also had a similar breakdown involving his mother. After he kills Polonius because he thought it was Claudius, his mother is a witness to Hamlet seeing the ghost of Hamlet I again. This time, however, Gertrude isn’t able to see the ghost, like how Horatio and the guards were able to see the ghost in act 1. At first, Hamlet thinks that Gertrude can see the ghost as well, but upon being questioned as to who he is talking to, Hamlet realizes she can’t see it. The ghost in this scene, unlike in act 1, is a manifestation of Hamlet’s own mind. It is him trying to blame the murder of Polonius on someone else, and him trying to rationalize his own behavior and mental state. Gertrude thinks that he has gone mad: “This is the very coinage of your brain. / This bodiless creation ecstasy / Is very cunning in,” (3.4 157-159) and she’s not wrong. The fake madness that Hamlet has been parading around with, has caused Hamlet to finally snap and realize that its not fake, and has never been fake. This is when he finally realizes he’s lost it, and instead of stopping, or seeking help from Horatio or even Ophelia, he continues with his revenge mission. Hamlet never takes responsibility for his actions, and as a result he doesn’t think he’s problematic and continues to hurt people with his actions.

  
  


While these moments define who Azula and Hamlet are, and what their problems truly are, they both have signs prior to their breakdown that show mental instability. According to “The Psychology of Azula’s Character” by Shung Min Tham, which discusses Azula’s mental health through a psychoanalysis of her behaviors and how she is depicted in making decisions and why she does what she does. It talks about how she interacts with other people, especially her father and Zuko and how they have affected her personality and life. Min Tham especially talks about Azula’s psychosis and paranoia that haunt her, and why she makes such rash decisions in her relationships with other people and he discusses the importance of power to Azula and why it was so important to her, as demonstrated by this quote on page 9: “However, her loss of power and control near the end of the series drove her to insanity, as she not only lost control over others, but also over her own mind.” In the show, Azula has nothing but her power over other people, as she has no friends and no loving family to help support her, and losing that is the final straw. As soon as she realized that she had nobody left, that’s where she was truly lost and didn’t care enough to better herself.

Hamlet also showed signs of mental instability before and after his mental breakdown after killing Polonius. The most notable of these moments where Hamlet was truly losing it was the to be soliloquy, and the scene after with Ophelia. In the to be soliloquy, Hamlet is wondering whether he should kill himself or not. In Act 3 Scene 1, Hamlet is balancing the pros and cons of death: 

“When he himself might his quietus make 

With a bare bodkin? 

Who would fardels bear, 

To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 

But that the dread of something after death, 

The undiscovered country from whose bourn 

No traveler returns, puzzles the will 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have 

Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,” (84-91)

In this quote, Hamlet says that the only thing keeping him from killing himself is the fear of the afterlife and what is after death. He wants to die, but doesn’t want to because he’s just too scared of the unknown. He overdramatizes his speech because he thinks he’s just acting crazy, but he doesn’t know anyone else is there, so he’s just acting for himself because he’s the only one he thinks that can help him. By doing this, he procrastinates processing his actual feelings and being able to grieve, which is a trend throughout the play. Another example of Hamlet overdramatizing is when he writes the Mousetrap play in Act 2, which was intended to expose Claudius’s guilt and to confirm Hamlet’s suspicions on his father’s murder, but because Hamlet already knew that Claudius killed Hamlet I, it allowed Hamlet to continue to procrastinate. Joe Keenar also talks about this in his article  _ Evolving Hamlet: Brains, Behavior, and The Bard. _ In this article, there is a few paragraphs/pages on how Hamlet dramatizes his life to procrastinate his revenge on Claudius. “ Hamlet knew the truth from the opening, but his big brain enabled him to disregard his instinct to preserve himself by ignoring his guilty uncle. Hamlet's reticence helps define him as a character, and he will continue to overlook his instincts throughout the play by overthinking, such as when he catches a guilty Claudius praying, postevidence of his crimes, but stays his hand with “That would be scanned” (3.4.78). Instead, he chooses to make his entire life a drama, feigning madness while offering long, philosophical speeches to an audience of one, himself.” This quote talks about Hamlet’s motives, but how his motives don’t exactly get him what he wants in the play. He acts and speaks to himself and shows everyone watching he doesn’t know what he wants to do. His decision to keep ignoring his instincts is what causes both his death and mental deterioration, and leads to him make more deadly mistakes.

In their desperate grabs for power and revenge, Azula and Hamlet hurt the people around them with their decisions and inability to change their behavior. Azula not only uses fear to control and manipulate Ty Lee and Mai, two people she considers her friends, but she even blackmails Zuko so she has power over him as well. When Aang is deemed dead by the Fire Nation, she tells Ozai that Zuko was the one to kill him so Zuko would owe her and couldn’t speak out against him. Later, when Zuko questions her motives in lying, she tells him: “ Please, Zuko. What ulterior motive could I have? What could I possibly gain by letting you get all the glory for defeating the Avatar? Unless somehow, the Avatar was actually alive. All that glory would suddenly turn to shame and foolishness. But you said yourself that was impossible. Sleep well, Zuzu.” (301- The Awakening). She threatens her own brother, who she knows has been hurt and abused by their father in the past, just so she has the upper hand. Similarly, Hamlet not only ignores Horatio (who is Hamlet’s only true friend), but he dismisses his ideas and any help that is offered. In Act 1, scene 4, when Hamlet first sees the ghost Horatio tells him not to follow it, but Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of talking to his father again and refuses to listen. “HAMLET: It will not speak. Then I will follow it.

HORATIO: Do not, my lord. 

HAMLET: Why, what should be the fear? 

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee. 

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself? ” (lines 70-74)

Had Hamlet listened to Horatio, he would have never have learned the truth about his father’s death, but due to his decision to ignore Horatio, he chose his tragic fate. Hamlet refuses to listen to Horatio’s advice in other scenes as well, but its obvious that he cares very much for Horatio unlike how Azula doesn’t really like Ty Lee and Mai. However, Hamlet does use Ophelia, as shown in Act 3 Scene 4 when he yells at her and tells her to get herself to a nunnery and treats her horribly. In fact, Hamlet shows more affection towards Horatio than he ever does to Ophelia despite Ophelia clearly having seen something in him before the events of the play occurred. She talks about Hamlet giving her love letters to Polonius and Laertes, who are both suspicious of Hamlet’s intentions, and she talks about him acting strangely and scaring her by showing up in her bedroom and being unpredictable and rude. Hamlet doesn’t let Ophelia in on his plan to act crazy, like he does with Horatio and Marcellus, and he uses her in that regard. Hamlet also sends Rosencranz and Guildenstern to their deaths because he thinks that betrayed him and are on Claudius’s side of things. He shows no remorse for this, despite his former friendship with them. Both Azula and Hamlet use people and their decisions to hurt them and betray them only cause them to fail. When Azula is duelling Zuko in the last Agni Kai, she has no backup, and when Hamlet is dying, Horatio can do nothing but watch him die because Hamlet chose to ignore his advice. 

While Hamlet and Azula have many similarities, Zuko and Hamlet also share many of the same attributes. Zuko has the same pressure from his father as Hamlet, but unlike Azula, his drive stems from fear, not greed, which mirrors Hamlet’s own fear of his father. When Zuko was thirteen, he was challenged to duel his father Ozai in a duel because he spoke out against another general in a war meeting. However, when Zuko refused to participate in the duel, Ozai burned his face and banished him from the Fire Nation until he found and brought back the Avatar, who was rumored to be alive. In the show he is sixteen, and has been searching for Aang for three years alongside his Uncle Iroh. He is desperate to find Aang so he can return home, and is angry because he can’t find him and as a result makes finding Aang a priority over everything else. When a storm threatens him and his crew, he refuses to allow the boat to stop because he thinks he knows where Aang is. When a nearby Lieutenant questions his decision, Zuko blows up at him, and leaves Iroh to explain why Zuko is so determined to find Aang. 

“ **Iroh** : It was no accident. After the duel, the Fire Lord said that by refusing to fight, Zuko had shown shameful weakness. As punishment he was banished and sent to capture the Avatar. Only then could he return with his honor.

**Lieutenant Jee** : So that's why he's so obsessed. Capturing the Avatar is the only chance he has of things returning to normal.

**Iroh** : Things will never return to normal. But the important thing is, the Avatar gives Zuko hope.” (Season 1, Episode 11)

This quote not only shows why Zuko is so determined to succeed in his mission, but it shows how Iroh, someone who knows Zuko incredibly well, sees him. Unlike Zuko, who is obsessed with reclaiming his honor so he can prove he is worthy of being firelord to his father, Iroh knows that Zuko will never be able to properly return to the Fire Nation, whether he succeeds or not. This is something Zuko later struggles with after he returns with Azula in Season three, as shown by the beach episode. While talking about their feelings he talks about how angry he is because he doesn’t know what to do. “For so long, I thought that if my dad accepted me, I'd be happy. I'm back home, now my dad talks to me. Huh, he even thinks I'm a hero. Everything should be perfect, right? I should be happy now, but I'm not. I'm angrier than ever and I don't know why.” (Season Three, Episode Five: The Beach) For so long Zuko based his entire purpose in life on catching the Avatar, but by the time he gets everything he wanted, he doesn’t want it anymore, and this is what causes him to finally realize that he wasn’t in the right and causes him to question everything he’s ever known. Throughout the series, Zuko realizes that other people and cultures are worth just as much as the Fire Nation’s, especially during his time with Iroh in Ba Sing Se, where he understood what a normal life was, and now that he’s back in royalty, he wants to have that life again.

Hamlet, like Zuko, fears his father and feels like he has something to prove to him. Obviously he doesn’t fear Hamlet I as much as Zuko fears Ozai, but like Zuko he desperately wants to prove that he is loyal and loves his father. In Act 1, Scene 5, the ghost of Hamlet I tells him that revenge is the only way he will truly honor him. “Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part, And each particular hair to stand an end, Like quills upon the fearful porpentine. But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love—” (lines 24-29) Hamlet wants to prove that he is the only one who truly loved his father, and as a result he’s willing to do anything and kill anyone in his way. Unfortunately, in his quest for vengeance, Hamlet loses his mind and kills and betrays more people than he originally intended. The ghost, although real in the first act, is merely a figment of Hamlet’s imagination after he kills Polonius, and he uses the ghost as a scapegoat to further taking responsibility. He is able to do this because he thinks his entire point to existence is to just avenge his father and he’s just following the ghost’s orders. When he kills Claudius in Act 5 scene 2, he is already dying from the poison so he doesn’t even get to feel victorious, all he feels is rage at being tricked. George MacDonald discusses Hamlet and the ghost of his father’s relationship in his article,  _ The Elder Hamlet _ . He talks about how the ghost interacts with other characters other than just Hamlet in the first act, which makes the ghost more credible to Hamlet and shows why he takes it so seriously. “ Reading this passage, can any one doubt that the ghost charges his late wife with adultery, as the root of all his woes? It is true that, obedient to the ghost's injunctions, as well as his own filial instincts, Hamlet accuses his mother of no more than was patent to all the world; but unless we suppose the ghost misinformed or mistaken, we must accept this charge.” This quote from MacDonald proves that without the push from the ghost, Hamlet would have never thought of actually killing Claudius in revenge. This may be a rather obvious statement, but it is proof towards any cause as to why Hamlet did what he did. The relationship between Hamlet and his ghostly father is built from a thirst for revenge and grief, and as a result, Hamlet makes rash and dangerous decisions to try and prove himself worthy. 

Not only are Zuko and Hamlet’s relationships with their fathers similar, but the way they treat the people around them who do care about their wellbeing. Throughout  _ Avatar _ , Zuko only his Uncle Iroh, who actively tries to support and show his love for Zuko despite Zuko’s refusal to listen. Dr Carol Panetta also talks about the importance of Iroh to Zuko in her article:  _ Avatar: The Last Airbender: A Psychoanalytic Review Or How a Kids’ Show Can Teach Analysis _ . In this article, she stresses the fact that while Iroh offers his help to Zuko whenever he needs it, he never judges Zuko for his decisions because he sees the good in him despite all the and things he’s done. “ Zuko’s Uncle Iroh demonstrates a psychoanalytic posture with Zuko, refraining from passing judgment while Zuko rejects his uncle’s guidance and projects his conflicts onto Uncle Iroh. Through the relationship between nephew and uncle, Prince Zuko gradually comes to internalize his uncle’s guidance and face his inner demons, demonstrating an analytic process of transference, resistance, and working through his conflicts.” (Panetta) This quote describes the relationship between them perfectly, and shows how Zuko needs Iroh’s guidance and how it affects him as a character when he takes his advice. Zuko betrays the Fire Nation at the end of the series because he knows Iroh will support him no matter what, and because he knows its the right thing to do, because of Iroh’s teachings of peace. Without Iroh, Zuko would be just like Azula, not victorious and surrounded by people he loves and who love him. Hamlet, as mentioned earlier, unfortunately differs from Zuko in this regard. He brushes off Horatio’s advice and warnings, and just dismisses everything Horatio says, and ultimately refuses to give up or change for the better. He cannot see past his own madness like Azula can’t, and it takes over him, unlike Zuko, who despite all the horrible things he’s done still has good in him and desperately wants to be better. 

Hamlet and Azula both differ from Zuko in their motivations and decisions because unlike Zuko, their choices come from a place of selfishness, not selflessness. Azula wants to be Firelord more than anything, and is willing to risk her older brother’s death in doing so. She will hurt anyone in her way, as proven by the way she uses and manipulates Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee into doing her bidding. She is driven by her desperation to come out on top, despite having her own insecurities that cause her to just work harder to prove them correct so she didn’t feel the hurt. Azula’s relationship with her mother solidified the thought that she was a monster, she she worked to be the worst monster possible, despite secretly craving her mother’s love. Hamlet wanted to prove himself to be the perfect and loyal son to Hamlet I, and pushed away Horatio and killed anyone to step in his way because he was overcome with madness and cast the blame aside because he couldn’t see why he was in the wrong. Zuko, on the other hand, starts off in a place of selfishness where he needs to regain his honor and believes his wants are more important than anyone else’s, but he realizes that he’s not better than anyone else. He is fueled by his own anger, and blames everything on other people, like Hamlet does, but once he gets everything he thought he wanted, he realizes he doesn’t want it anymore and questions his loyalty. He could’ve stayed in the Fire Nation and allowed for the Fire Nation to take over the world, but he betrayed it and went to help Aang win because he knew it was the right thing to do. 

  
  
  
  



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